Graphic by Noemi Gonzalez.Music videos are kind of hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes they leave me unaffected, but more often than not, I’m either floored or underwhelmed. The worst is when the vision I had for a song gets crushed by a video interpretation that doesn’t fit. This might come off as irrelevant to the music or even selfish, but I think there’s usually a heavy dose of meaning for artists in the videos they piece together for songs. To not resonate with a video feels much like not resonating with the artist, their initial vision and the music itself.
This was an exciting week. The Head and the Heart released a new video, which proved to be a fantastic, moving new addition to their collective book of musical successes.
The video is for “Another Story”, a track on their sophomore album, “Let’s Be Still.” It tells a story of two young women who fall in love during what seems to be the carefree, glowing summer season. Visually, it takes on a retro vibe with lots of vintage looking linen dresses, bicycles and an old-fashioned camera. Their families don’t approve of the affair, and the video takes a tragic turn as one of the women is fatally hit by a car. It ends in the present, with the elderly, surviving lover developing old photographs of her deceased partner in a shed. The lyrics mesh seamlessly. “I’ll tell you one thing / We ain’t gonna change much / the sun still rises / even with the pain.”
I have to give The Head and the Heart a lot of credit, for they seem to have really tried a more creative and theatrical approach with this video that certainly portrays the hardships of love in their rawest form. I appreciate the storytelling, the aesthetic appeal and most of all, the easygoing way they integrate a same-sex relationship into a beautifully pieced-together love story. Even today, I see that there’s a shortage of romantic depictions through a lens that isn’t strictly heterosexual.
In the midst of Arizona’s SB 1062 nonsensical proposal, it seems so appropriate that this video was gifted to the masses during a time of social injustice. It bears a lighthearted, sincere beauty that I think puts any talk of discrimination right in its place: shame.
Reach the blogger at inovak@asu.edu or on Twitter @IsabelleNovak.
